Hospital staff in Iran said their facilities have been overwhelmed by injuries – including people suffering from gunshot wounds – as anti-government protests rage in the Islamic Republic, a report said.
A doctor at Tehran’s Farabi Hospital, the city’s main eye specialist center, told the BBC late Friday that the facility entered a crisis mode, closing emergency services and suspending non-urgent admissions.
A doctor at a hospital in the city of Shiraz also told the network that large numbers of injured people were being brought in, despite the hospital not having enough surgeons to treat them. He added that many of the injured had gunshot wounds to the head and eyes. according to the BBC.
The death toll in the protests rose to at least 72 people and more than 2,300 others arrested on Saturday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
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A vehicle burns during protests in Tehran, Iran, on January 8, 2026. (Khosh Iran/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
The protests began late last month when shopkeepers and bazaar traders demonstrated against rising inflation and the collapse of the rial, which lost about half its value against the dollar last year. Inflation reached the 40% mark in December. The unrest soon spread to universities and provincial towns, where young men clashed with security forces.
At a press conference in Washington DC on Friday, President Donald Trump said Iran is under increasing pressure.
“Iran is in big trouble,” Trump said. “It seems that people are taking over certain cities that no one thought possible just a few weeks ago. We are closely monitoring the situation.”
Trump warned that the United States would respond strongly if the regime resorted to mass violence. “We’re going to hit them really hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean we have to put our feet on the ground, but it means we have to hit them really, really hard where it hurts.”
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Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid developing anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screenshot obtained from a social media video released on January 9, 2026. (Social media/via Reuters)
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has announced a coming crackdown despite US warnings, according to the Associated Press.
Tehran escalated its threats on Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone who participates in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a charge punishable by death. The Iranian state television statement said even those who “helped rioters” would face charges.
“Prosecutors must carefully and without delay, by issuing indictments, prepare the grounds for the trial and decisive confrontation with those who, by betraying the nation and creating uncertainty, seek foreign domination over the country,” the statement said. “Proceedings must be conducted without leniency, compassion or indulgence.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered support to the demonstrators.
Iranians gather while blocking a street during a protest in Kermanshah, Iran on January 8, 2026. (Kamran/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
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“The United States stands with the brave people of Iran,” Rubio wrote on X on Saturday.
